


The Jon x Daenerys Drabbles

by crossingwinter



Series: Irresponsible Storytelling [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:55:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 12,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Tumblr ficlets about Jon and Daenerys.  Ratings will vary, as will 'verses.





	1. once and future queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/gifts).



she looks at the white wood, eyes dripping red blood and looks back.

she looks back to a house with a red door, to the moment when viserys’ eyes hardened when he looked at her, to ser willem dead.  she looks back to homelessness, she looks back to fear.

she looks back to drogo, her sun and stars–a man who had raped her, a man who had killed for her, a man whose son she had born and whose death she had caused.  she looks back to starvation on the red waste, to hatred in the eyes of men who feared her dragons, to cries of  _mhysa_  and those she could not protect.

she looks back to the seas, looks back to the darkness, looks back to the sound of dying dragons.   _what is a dragon queen without dragons?_

she sits down in the snow and stares at the face of the white tree, tucking her knees against her chest.  jon’s brother–his cousin in truth, but he still calls him brother and thus so shall dany–says that the old gods of the north aren’t gods for true.  they are men who speak with power and magic.   _what are gods if gods are men?_

daenerys targaryen is not a godly woman.  what gods ever cared for her?  by the time the red priests had started calling her salvation she had already born her dragons.  she could not believe in their words about her when their words came after her deeds.  her brothers, her parents, her grandparents–they had all kept the seven, yet she did not even know the words to their prayers and found little comfort in their seven pointed star.  what faith she had, she had in herself and now–

“they do not want me,” she says quietly to the tree.   _what is a dragon queen without dragons?_ her dragons had been good enough to save them, to burn the armies of the dead and lay tormented souls to rest, but when they had fallen what was she now?  she feels almost as she had as a little girl–except she is older, and wiser, and knows what men were and what they aren’t, what they want and what they didn’t.  “my lords, my father’s vassals do not want me.”

they do not want cersei, they do not want any iron throne, or red keep.  they want what they had had for centuries–war between them endless war over borders but in the name of what?  they sold the blood of their smallfolk for honor.  how is that better than what she offered?  and how much blood of the innocent would she have to spill in order to prove that point?  what is a dragon queen with no dragons and no lords who bent the knee, whose only blood is a nephew whose own bannermen disliked his loyalty to her?  

“i cannot make them have me,” she says to the tree.  what force does she have?  how many of her unsullied had died only to be resurrected, enslaved once again after she had done all she could to make it so they would never know the whip again?  and her dothraki, who had braved the poisoned water for her–what of them?  they wanted her, but her khalasar was small, and without lands of its own here, and she’d only ever wanted a home.  

“they should be grateful that i saved them–me and my dragons.”  she says to the tree, and the words hurt her.  does she matter?  had she ever mattered?  or is she what viserys had always told her she was–useless and stupid.   _i don’t even have a womb anymore.  that’s what viserys sold me for.  my womb._ was that her only worth? her withered womb, now that she had no dragons to offer in its stead? no dragons, no birthright, no hope for children of her own, no legacy–beyond the survival of every man, woman, and child on this continent.

 _“_ if there is one thing i’ve learned, it’s that men are rarely grateful for what they should be.”  she turns her head just an inch–not fully, but enough to see him, approaching her, dressed in furs and velvet.  he kneels down beside her and then–sharply– “ghost,  _no_ , not on the heart tree.”

the great direwolf with its wide red eyes had lifted its leg to relieve himself for just a moment, but at jon’s words goes to find a pine instead.  dany feels warm laughter bubbling up out of her, and jon reached a hand out and took hers.

he had not taken her hand since the moment bran had named him cousin.  

he squeezes it now.

“how much force would i require to conquer the kingdoms?  and what force do i have if i don’t have my dragons anymore?” she asks wearily.  “if saving them from an army of the undead doesn’t prove my worth to them, what will?” and then, because she cannot help herself, because it is  _jon,_  who has always understood her better than anynoe, “will i never be more to them than my father’s madness–no matter how hard i fight to save them from a fate worse than death?  how much must i prove that i belong here? that i belong here too?” her voice breaks and she is crying, her tears hot on her face in the cold.  jon’s hand tightens in hers too.

“you belong here,” jon says quietly.

“except the lords who should bend the–”

“no, i meant here.  here in winterfell.  here with me.”

dany freezes and looks at him.  “my lords bannermen would still have me as king, though my trueborn brother sits by my side and should be their king instead.  they see my valor and my stark look and my refusal to take the targaryen name as enough proof that i’m stark enough for them, where bran’s legs are enough to hold their approbation from him–as though his sight didn’t save us all.”  there’s a subtle anger there that she hears.  she loves him for it.  “stay with me,” he whispers to her before the gods of his father.  “stay here in winterfell.  make this your home, where the last of your blood resides.”

“it won’t be mine,” she says dully.  “not my true home–not ever.”

jon cocked his head, thinking.  then he spoke slowly.  “gods be good i never thought this would cross my mind.”

“what?”

“these northern lords accepted lady catelyn in winterfell.  they loved her for the sons she bore my father and the daughters too.  they esteemed the advice she gave my brother robb without ever damning her for not being of the north.  they’ve seen you fight for the north, they’ve seen your dragons die for the north.  they’ll accept you as their king’s blood.”

“lady catelyn had northern children,” daenerys said sadly.  “i never will.”

“nor shall i, i suspect,” jon points out.  “i may be alive, but my life is not as it would be had i never died.  my manhood may…” he pauses, unsure of what to say and dany looks at ghost, flushing at the memory of him, of them, loving without care, without knowledge.  “may fuction, but i fear for the seed i produce in truth.  it is…not the same as it was before.” he’s red as ghost’s eyes now, and dany feels heat on her face now too.  

jon reaches the hand that’s not in hers up and turns her face to his.  “marry me, dany.  my useless manhood and your useless womb will be well matched.  my heir can be bran’s, or arya’s, or sansa’s child and the starks can rule the north when we are dead and gone.  stay here with me and make this your home.   your dragons and all the good they did will never be forgotten here.”

“i rather suspect that your nothern lords won’t like you marrying your aunt,” she says quietly.  she remembers the horror in jon’s eyes–her own horror too–at the words.   _he may call himself snow, but they all know there’s dragon in his blood now too._

“then they’ll dethrone me and put bran on the thing,” jon says.  “i don’t care what they think.  starks have married cousin to cousin before–what house hasn’t? and if there shall be no fruit in the union, what can they care?  i love you dany.  marry me.  stay with me.  make your home here until the end of your days as queen in the north at my side.”

dany goes still.  she looks at the bleeding white tree before her.  how much endless war must she face for anything else?  could she not live for love and peace?  does she not deserve that?  and jon would share with her…whatever jon thinks–had thought–of their shared blood, it had only led him down a road to this moment.  

she turns her gaze to the wolf, lying between them and the tree.  he is watching her with deep red eyes.   _red_ , she thinks and swallows.   _if eyes are doors to the soul, and ghost is part of jon’s soul, then these doors are red._

she takes a deep breath.  

“my dothraki and unsullied,” she begins.

“the north is vast and wasn’t fully peopled before the army of the dead claimed countless lives.  i see no reason why your dothraki can’t roam it, if they’d prefer to remain than return to the great grass sea.  they would be subject to northern rule, and shan’t rape and pillage lest their king’s justice comes down upon them, but i don’t see why they can’t ride the plains.  nymeria coming to dorne led to a golden age in her principality.  i don’t see why the same might not be true here and now.  and as for your unsullied…”

“they can do as they please,” she says, eager.  “let them build lives for themselves here.“

“i’d already thought to give grey worm a castle,” jon says, smiling.  “he deserves at least three.”

that makes dany laugh and it is that more than anything else–she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. 

how she has missed kissing him, the way her heart swells at the taste of his lips, the way his hands feel in her hair.  “truly?” she asks him between kisses.  “you want this?”   _you want me?_

jon only kisses her.  he kisses her so deeply and pushes her back in the snow and the cold against her back is uncomfortable but she supposes she’ll get used to it.  


	2. the air is cold, but she is warm.

the air is cold, but she is warm.  

it’s amazing what blood can do, what your heart can do–flowing warmth through her veins keeping her skin hot even as the air she draws into her lungs is cold.  she doesn’t feel it.  she doesn’t care.  her blood is fire.   _fire and blood.  he sets my blood on fire._

she cracks open her eyes and peeks down at him.  his tongue is against her slit right now, his fingers tracing light circles on the insides of her thighs as he laps at her sex.  it’s a gentle touch–both tongue and fingers.  his is not the touch of a man who seeks to show how good he is at bedding her.  perhaps that is the secret, she wonders, bemused.  perhaps that is why she enjoys bedding him so much.

his tongue finds the bud at the top of her sex and swirls around it and she lets out a chirruping sound, not unlike the sounds that her dragons had made when they’d been small.  she shifts on the bed, tilts her hips up a little more, shifts her legs a little wider, arches her back ever so slightly, but she doesn’t close her eyes again.

the room is dark save for candles, and the furs underneath her are soft.  jon’s hair, loose from its usual tie, is soft between her fingers as she runs her fingers against his scalp.  he shifts onto his elbows and knees, and she catches a glimpse of the muscles of his back, all the way down to his ass.  the angle of his mouth against her sex is different now and she thinks she likes it less well and cants her hips again.  and as she shifts he sits up slightly and she sees why it was he had changed positions.

he’d been mostly hard before when they’d been kissing, when he’d kissed his way down between her breasts, between her legs.  but now she can see just how hard he is, his member swollen and a deeper pink with blood.  and as he makes to bend his head back down to her slit she sits up and he pauses, looking at her curiously.  

she lies down on her side, her lips brushing against the softest skin she’s ever felt.  she licks along his crown before taking him fully between her lips and sucking him deep down towards the back of his throat.  he lets out a groan as he sits there, and then she feels him twist, lying down on his side as well, his hands pulling her hips back to his face and his tongue finding that bud again, still so very gentle.  she rocks herself against his tongue as she swirls hers around the tip of his swollen cock and no longer does the air in her lungs feel cold at all.  when she breathes, she breathes the warm off jon’s skin, and that warmth only heats her heart further.  

he tastes tangy on her tongue, sweaty and musty and that smell that she’d first noticed when he’d taken her arm the first time, that smell she couldn’t place but which she hadn’t been able to forget, to stop thinking about, because for some reason it smelled like home.   _is this what winterfell smells like to him?_ she had wondered, and then, sadly,  _i can never smell like home._ home was a house with a red door, and a lemon tree in the garden, and was lost to her forever.

but why did jon smell like home? why did his cock on her tongue taste like home, why did the way his tongue slid between her slit feel like home in a way that nothing had since she’d been a little girl?   _if i look back, i am lost._ but if she looked forward, she saw jon, jon, jon…

what comes next isn’t anything she’s felt before.  not that she hasn’t felt it–daario had been a daring enough lover that she’d felt her cunt throb, and irri knew the way her body worked enough to finish her in a matter of minutes.  but daario had always felt like he was driving her to it, and irri felt as though she controlled it so well that she’d planned it down to the second.  with jon it washes over her, so unexpected because of the gentleness of his tongue that she doesn’t pull away as she would ordinarily when she finishes.  instead she rocks herself against him, and with each passing moment the waves crash harder, and she lets go of his cock with her mouth to gasp out his name as his tongue gently guides her to calmer seas.

she lies there for a moment, breathing, her eyes open, staring at his stomach, at the scars that have punched their way through his muscles, at the wet of her saliva on his member.  he’s not licking her anymore, but he’s running a finger along her slit gently, as though he can’t stop touching it, as though he doesn’t want to stop touching it.  she curls away slightly and looks at him.  

 _love comes in at the eyes,_ she remembers doreah telling her once so long ago. she’d thought she’d understood that then, but what a foolish little girl she’d been.  that hadn’t been love, not like this was.  that had been need–needing her khal to care for her lest he rape her into nothingness.  jon’s grey gaze though–that was what doreah had meant.  

and dany gets to her knees and pushes jon so that he’s on his back.  she straddles him, and guides her still twitching cunt onto his cock.  his hands fly to her hips and his eyes lock into hers and she watches as, with each stroke of her onto him, he loses himself a little more in her.


	3. i am not my father

“the lords of westeros need to know you’re not your father.”

“i am not my father,” dany says, hands on her hips, glaring at him.

“you must tell them as such.”

“is it not plain enough that i am not my father when i come and do not burn down king’s landing as cersei did?” she says through gritted teeth.  "who is the mad monarch?“

“you come on dragonback with the threat of an inferno.  whether or not you are cersei lannister matters little to them when you could burn their homes thrice over.”

“i am their queen.  by right, i am their queen.”

but jon is shaking his head.  "by conquest you are their queen.  rights have little and less to do with it.“

“just as your rights have little and less to do with your crown?” she snaps, and jon glares at her, and she knows–knows, that she has said too much.   _i will not back down.  what i say is true.  he has no right to the crown on his head by his own laws.  he is a bastard._

“my lords crowned me.  they named me my–” he grits his teeth, “my father’s heir.”   _is he so stubborn that he cannot even admit that ned stark is not his father?  he must acknowledge his father, just as much as i must acknowledge mine._ “and yours will reject you unless you show them you are not your father.”

they stare at one another, and dany squares her shoulders.  she will not back down, not in this, not to anyone.  she is a queen.

a queen, and jon was crowned a king.   _it’s the first time i’ve met an equal._ the thought is not a helpful one.  

one of them has to break the silence.  one of them has to.  and it won’t be her.

but in the silence, she starts to notice things she wishes she didn’t–how he’s standing too close, how he’s taller than she is, the fire in his icy grey eyes…


	4. Home for the Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for ariannenymerosmartell

“Of course you can bring a friend home for the holidays,” Catelyn said, with the sort of tone that inhaled as she spoke. “Why on earth wouldn’t you be allowed?  Robb’s bringing Theon again, after all.”

“Thanks, Catelyn,” Jon said.  He still felt strange calling her that.  He did his best not to.  But his therapist said he should make space for himself, and calling her by her name was a way to do that.  He wasn’t a little boy any longer.  He could do this.  “It means a lot.  She’s not got anywhere to go, and it would suck to spend the holidays alone.”

He heard silence on the other end of the line.  “She?” Catelyn asked.  

Jon took a deep breath.  “Yes.  Dany.  She’s in my Military History since 1500 class.”  She was the only girl in it, and had spent most of the time glaring at the other male students when they talked down to her and then outflanking them during discussion sections leaving them all on their asses trying to gather their thoughts.  She reminded him of Arya.

“Dany,” Catelyn said slowly.  “Well…”  Jon prepared himself.  He’d been so relieved she’d said yes and now… “Well, she’ll have to sleep in Sansa’s room.  Or Arya’s.”

Jon heard in the background Arya’s energetic statement, “She can stay in my room,” and he sighed to himself and leaned against the door of the tiny bedroom he shared with Sam.  

“She’ll stay with Arya,” Catelyn said, and Jon heard himself thanking her again.

“I want to talk to him,” he heard Arya say and then the sound of the phone shuffling, and Arya asking, point-blank, “So.  Who’s your girlfriend, then?”

* * *

She wasn’t his girlfriend.  Not really.  They ate in the dining halls together for almost every meal, and Jon had fallen asleep on her couch more times than he could count, but she wasn’t his girlfriend.  It wasn’t like that.

Jon hadn’t had a girlfriend since Ygritte, and that was still an open sore whenever he thought about it.  He remembered the light from her eyes fading, the gap between her teeth because her parents hadn’t wanted to waste the money on braces when everything else about her mouth was fine, the way her laugh had made him swell inside.  Girlfriends were something special, they were sex and laughter and feeling alive.  And it wasn’t that Dany wasn’t hot–she was, she  _definitely_ was.  It was that she was never, in a million years, like Ygritte.

“If you still don’t have a place to go for Christmas, you can come with me,” he told her one afternoon and she looked up, her lips parting slightly.

“Really?” she breathed, and Jon nodded.  Then her eyes flickered.

“She’ll be ok with it?”

“Yeah.  She’s fine with it.  You’ll stay in Arya’s room.”  And her eyes went bright again and she grinned.

“I can’t wait to meet her,” she said excitedly.  Jon had told her all about Arya, about how they were the ones that looked like real siblings, about how Arya could always make him smile, about how Arya was the one who was making him take the fucking Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course that he was currently trying to finish a twenty-page term paper for.  

“You’ll like her,” Jon grinned.  

“I know I will,” Dany said quickly.  She fiddled with her scarf and tugged her long blonde hair up into a fresh pony tail.  “How cold will it be.”

Jon made a face.  “We have extra coats if you get cold.”  Dany moaned, but she was still smiling.  

“Thanks,” she said, quietly.  

“Anytime,” Jon smiled.

Dany had a nice smile, though she wore her stress on her face.  But she had the sort of smile that hid stuff–a brother who’d hit her when she’d been a girl, and boyfriends who’d thought they’d known what was best for her, who thought they’d loved her, but if the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies class he was taking had taught him one thing, it was that they hadn’t really loved her the way love should be.  Not that he said that to Dany.  He knew about Viserys, but he kept his opinions about her exes to himself.  Just like how she knew about Catelyn, and kept her opinions about the rest to herself.

* * *

Dany slept–not just in Arya’s room, but in Arya’s bed.  “What, she’s a guest,” Arya had shrugged nonchalantly when Jon had raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.  “Besides, if she sleeps on the floor, Nymeria will sit on her face probably.” Arya’s old dog couldn’t get up on the bed anymore, so she tended to sleep on the floor next to it.  It was probably a treat to have Arya on the floor with her.  

The next morning, the pair of them were thick as thieves when they came downstairs for breakfast, and Jon did his best not to be too perturbed by it.  Especially when they both burst out laughing as he burned his toast black the way he liked it.  

“I think I underestimated how much you two would get along,” Jon mumbled, which was met with more giggles.

He’d never heard Dany giggle.  Laugh, sure, but giggle gleefully like a little girl… it made him sad to think about.  There was something joyous about her face that he’d not seen before.   _Arya can worm her way into anyone’s heart_ , he thought fondly, looking at his little sister.  She was taller than Dany now, if only by an inch or so.  And not so much a little girl as a young woman.  When had that happened?  He wasn’t sure.  He didn’t know how he felt about it.

* * *

“You’re a good big brother, you know?” Dany said later that day while they were making sandwiches for lunch.  

He smiled at her.  “Yeah, that’s what Arya says.”  

Her eyes flickered again.  She had such pretty eyes, Dany did.  Violet like you read about in fantasy books but which Jon hadn’t thought was a  _real_  color for eyes until he’d met her.  He’d thought she wore color contact lenses until he saw her in glasses one morning when she was tired and came to lecture in her pajamas.  

“What’s up?” he asked her quietly, but she didn’t reply.  She put another sandwich on the plate they were bringing back to the living room in a few minutes then, quickly, gave him a hug, her arms wrapping around him so tightly that he thought his bones might break.  

Jon held her as best he could, given the angle, given that she’d practically pinned his arms to his side.  He held her quietly, and for just a moment the house was still around them, and he felt his heart swell.


	5. i loved your father, and i never knew him.

“i loved your father, and i never knew him.”

she hopes he does not hear.  she hopes he does not–because she is sure he will be angry.  he is not a stark, in the end, because of his father.  he was raised to hate his father, and he does–refuses even to call him father.   _“ned stark was my father,”_ he insists through gritted teeth whenever someone throws the word targaryen at him.  it is not enough.  not enough for him to keep the crown they set upon his head.  he puts it aside for a  _true_  stark, and takes up the name  _snow_  again, and dany watches him flex his hand as if the scars there remind him of something.  she never knows what.

 _i loved rhaegar, and i never knew him._ she didn’t have to know him. and for all these northern lords spoke of rape, and of the atrocities that her brother and father had committed against their starks, all she could think was of viserys.   _rhaegar was the brother i wanted, not the brother i had.  he was valiant.  he was._ or he had been to her, at least.  he had been because she’d needed him to be.

she loves rhaegar as much as jon hates him, and jon glances at her, eyebrows raised because he hadn’t quite heard her. 

“you loved your father.  you must miss him.”

and he smiles, his face softening, and she sees gratitude in his grey eyes.   _they say he has ned stark’s eyes._

_and me?  i have rhaegar’s._


	6. snapchat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for ariannenymerosmartell

he doesn’t know how it starts.  he just knows that it has, and he’s not sure he wants it to stop.

she’s his aunt, but she’s younger than him, and they weren’t raised together.  and, jon’s sure, if his uncle ned ever found out, jon could dig himself into the ground and bury himself because he doesn’t need to see uncle ned’s face to know that this…this is fucked up.

he’s sure a therapist will blame it on his relationship with his aunt.  he’s surer still that a therapist will pin it on dany’s relationship with her brother viserys.  but he can’t bring himself to care when it’s eleven pm and he’s finishing a beer and he gets a snapchat notification and there–there are dany’s breasts, lovely and pale and full.

he goes into his room and strips off his shirt, and there’s a picture of him flexing his muscles in the mirror for her.  a moment later, there’s another picture of her fingers circling her nipples.  then there’s one of him pulling his dick out of his boxers.  then her hand sliding down into pale purple panties and jon loses himself in pictures of her and pictures of him because who cares.  it’s snapchat.  they’ll be gone in a few seconds and at least for this transient moment, they’re together and they understand one another completely.


	7. I'm not afraid.

“You needn’t be afraid.  You are not your father or your brother.  The northmen will see that,” Jon says, taking her hand in his and bringing it to his lips.  

 _Am I supposed to be scared?_ Dany isn’t.  She doesn’t know why.  She supposes she should be–but somehow the concept of these northerners rejecting her…it doesn’t frighten her as it might once have.   _I am the blood of the dragon,_ she thinks as she looks to the door.  One of the stewards is walking towards it, preparing to open it and usher in Jon’s lords bannermen.  

She squares her shoulders and gives Jon a smile.   _I am Daenerys Stormborn, the mother of dragons, daughter of fire, bride of fire.  I’ve survived this far._

“I’m not afraid,” she says quietly to him as the doors open, and Jon’s eyes flicker, and the corner of his lip twitches into what might almost be a smile as together they turn to face whoever has come to tell them that their marriage is not to be born.


	8. she...doesn't like me very much

“she…doesn’t like me very much,” jon mumbles, and dany raises an eyebrow.

“what did you do?”

“nothing!” jon says.

“oh really?”  dany doesn’t believe him–not even a little bit.  he’s got a guilty look on his long face, and he’s avoiding her gaze.

“no, i mean it,” he says and he takes a deep breath.  “you know how sam and gilly met, yeah?”

oh boy does dany know.  she’s known it as long as she’s known gilly, the girl who trusted no one near her son, and had been wary of dany until she’d realized that there was a reason dany was in the meeting too.  after that, well, it had been different.

“jon,” dany begins, and it’s almost a growl.

“look,” he says, “i just didn’t do anything, all right?  that’s what i meant.  sam came to me to help and i…i…” he gulps, “i wouldn’t help him, and told him he shouldn’t help her.”

“you what?”  for a moment, she considers exploding at him, of shrieking and saying how _dare_  he, how  _dare_  he not be willing to help a girl escape from her rapist, how was it that he could sleep with himself at night, how could he look her in the face, knowing all that he knew about her.

jon doesn’t say a word.  he looks ashamed at least.  that’s something.  “i don’t know how to make it better,” he whispers.

“you can’t,” dany says.  “but you can start by helping me organize this fucking birthday party for her, snow.”

jon straightens up and nods dutifully and dany opens her computer and pulls up the list of people she’d already planned to invite.


	9. unflappable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for thebookverve

jon snow is, by and large, unflappable.  she assumes it’s because he was dead for a time, or that’s at least what she tells irri when she asks.  where most men comment on her beauty, or seem to acknowledge it, jon snow does not.

“perhaps it is the north in him,” irri suggests one night as she removes the bells from dany’s hair.  

“perhaps,” dany replies.   _ser jorah was never so frigid,_ she thinks.   _it is not the north._

it is the  _stark_  she thinks.  up and down the countryside, she hears naught of ned stark but his honor.  his bastard son–perhaps the only dent in ned stark’s honor–seems to prize it as well.

it intrigues her.  he treats her well–respectfully.  never once does he mistake her for a girl as so many of the other lords do.  but neither does he treat her as a woman.  his gaze is one of equals–a king to her queen, and the longer she is in her presence the more she wishes…

she does not know what she wishes.

she does not wish him less honorable.  she esteems him for it.  and yet she wants him to look at her as though he were a man and not a king.  

which is why one night long after their council has finished its discussions, dany yawns, and stretches and sheds her hrakkar.

“you’re not cold, your grace?” he asks quietly.  the white lion skin has kept her warm through the winter, and dany has made enough comments about the coldness of the air that he would ask. 

“the fire is warm,” she says and goes to stand by it.  with the fire to her front, she knows he will see her silhouette, and without the hrakkar to obscure her form…but she cannot see his face.

she hears footsteps and for a moment she fears that he is leaving the room, but no, he is coming to stand beside her, looking into the flames.  he is taller than she is, and she looks up at him, curiously.  “are you cold?” she asks him and his eyes flicker between hers for just a moment.

he doesn’t reply.   _is it his honor?_ she wonders,  _or does he have nothing to say?_

“no,” he says at last.  “no, i am not cold.  but i wonder if i misread you.”

“misread me?” she asks.  “i did not know i was a book.”

but jon snow shakes his head, a faint sad smile on his lips.  “what is it you want of me?” he asks quietly, and dany’s breath catches in her throat.

“want of you?” 

“aye,” he says and his voice is very brusque, and dany’s heart is loud, the crackling of the flames is loud, and is she imagining it or does his head tilt slightly.  “for i’d not impose, save that i thought i saw an invitation in your eyes.”

 _no one has ever asked me,_  she realizes.  _daario demanded, and jorah took, and i was given to my sun and stars._

_no one has ever asked me._

trembling, she reaches a hand up and touches his cheek.  he does not reel away, his gaze does not break from hers.   _i’d thought to try and make him look at me as a man does…_ but no man dany had ever met had looked at her as jon snow does now.  

and in that moment, dany forgets that she is queen, that he is king, that it is winter, that there is war.  she forgets everything except the feeling of warmth that is spreading from her heart to her lips and when she kisses him it is  _she_  who kisses  _him_. 


	10. they're there together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for ariannenymerosmartell

there’s not a lot of people out there who understand why she doesn’t look back.  they think they do.  “sorry about your brother, dany, he sounds really really terrible.”  and he was.  he was, but she loves him.  it’s hard.  how can you love someone you hate?  how can you love someone who made you feel small.

she still feels small sometimes.  she hates that.  when she’s tired, or when she’s drunk, or when everyone’s smiling and happy and sharing some memory of something that she hadn’t had because  _viserys,_ she still feels like a sad, lonely little girl who stared out the window at a lemon tree and read too many fantasy novels because it was better to dream of dragons than to live with him.

it really just takes one–one sideways comment, muttered under his breath, muttered dryly, the way his eyes go distant for a moment, and she knows he knows.  it’s not a brother for him, but it hurts just as bad.  

just once when they’re sitting together, heads bent over their “history of war” (god, what a pretentious course title) readings and even though dany is used to feeling small, used to feeling as though somehow nothing she ever does will be good enough, in that moment she doesn’t feel alone with viserys’ ghost anymore.  

she’s there, and jon’s there, and they’re there together and that–that’s enough to make her feel as though her breath fully reaches her stomach, fully reaches her heart.


	11. keep it secret, keep it safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for @jonerysfics’ / @jonerysnetwork’s jonerys fic contest

there is something thrilling in a secret–or at least, this secret.  perhaps that’s what has her so breathless.

there’s a headiness to the air of the room as he presses his lips to hers.  she expected–the first time he kissed her–for the stubble of his beard to be rough.  but it’s not.  it’s soft, like his hair, like his skin, like his touch as calloused fingers trace their way along her arms.

he’s a more tentative lover than daario or drogo, but a warmer one, somehow, and that warmth fills her veins even as the snow falls outside and the icy winds blow.  their lips, their lungs, their hearts moving as one, washing away the rest of the world.  together, in this moment, it’s just the two of them.  together, in this moment, they aren’t a king and a queen, a bastard and a lost little girl.  he is jon, and she is dany, and every moment is precious.

he holds her hands as he kisses her.  

it surprises her.  daario always held her breasts, and drogo her hips, but jon holds her hands, his fingers laced with hers.  his lips trail down to her neck and she kisses his as he hovers above her, arms pressing into the bedding on either side of her head, feeling the way his heart thuds life up his neck through her lips.  

they say he died, that his own men slew him.  she can see the scars on his stomach, on his chest from the knives so she only thinks she must believe it.  she brought dragons into the world, after all, it cannot be so unworldly that he could have died and yet still love.  he died and lived again, as she’d prayed that her sun and stars would.  perhaps drogo was not her sun and stars after all, for he never came back as sun and stars do at break of night and day.  perhaps it was jon all along, and she’d never known.  she would run her fingers over his scars, but can’t bring herself to pull her hands from his.  she’d kiss them, but she likes the taste of his neck too much and will save it for later.  

she knows there will be a later.  there can’t not be a later–not now that they’re here.  after all the heated arguments, the sidelong glances, the intense gazes that she’d thought at first was discord but no–no it was just that there was fire between them.  there must be a later, somehow, some way for jon is too honorable to bed her and leave her like some trophy and she is lost in the scent of his sweat, the taste of his skin as she kisses her way across the bottom of his neck to the other side, that tastes more gently exquisite than the most fragrant flowers she’d ever smelled.  there will be a later because she’d have it no other way and she knows that it is the same for him.

 _how, though?_ she wants to put the thought from her mind.  she tries to, even as his head drops down between her breasts and he pulls back onto his knees.  he is still holding her hands for balance now as he kisses back and forth along the space between her breasts.  she wants desperately to think of nothing else but him but this–this too is him.

he is king, and she is queen, and they could be perfect, just the two of them.  what more fitting match could there be for all the kingdoms–him and her, riding together to charge down their enemies, her and him, hand in hand to face the night.

but he is a king and she is not his queen and if they are to be perfect, it must be carefully done or else all will be lost.  she’d lost drogo, she’d left daario–she did not wish to lose jon, not when she’d only just found him and it was as though her soul had been searching for his throughout her whole life.

he pauses in his kissing of her and looks up, nudging her breastbone with his nose.  she smiles down at him, and he whispers, “you’re beautiful.”  it’s a simple phrase, and she’s heard it many times from everyone who calls her the most beautiful woman alive.  but it’s not the words she believes, it’s jon’s tired grey eyes that seem a little less tired now as he looks up at her.  

dany sits up.  her lips find his again.  she shifts so that she is not underneath him anymore, but straddling him, hips rocking against his hardened manhood.  she tries again to put thoughts of what comes beyond them away and this time she succeeds.  just now, they are secret, they are safe, and that is all that matters just now.  the rest can wait for day.

she loves the feel of him between her legs.  he shifts slightly underneath her, so better to balance and his hands let go of hers for the first time.  they grab hold of her rear, not guiding her motion at all, just holding onto it.  he kisses the tops of her breasts and she wraps her arms around him, fingers twining with the dark hair, now hanging long and loose from the knot he usually ties it in.  his hair is so soft, so dark.  she remembered thinking he looked cold, if handsome, when first she’d seen him–stark blood of the north, and surely there was ice in his veins not blood.  but no–no he is warmth, he is heat, he is fire as he kisses life into her chest as his hips press against hers, not quite entering her, but the way his cock is rubbing against her slit starts to make her tremble.

she reaches a hand down between them and finds his member, wrapping fingers around it and stroking gently.  his skin is slick from her, and that knowledge makes her groan.  his fingers tighten against her hips as she rubs, and her head falls forward and she kisses his neck again, more because it is there and her heart is sinking into him than anything else.  

one of his hands–the one with the scar on his palm–releases her hip and he reaches down between them too.  she thinks he’s going to guide her hand, increase her speed, but he stills it instead.  he turns his head and she pauses in kissing him, looking up.  she wants to say something.  she wants to say anything.  but she can’t think of what to say, and all that slips from her lips is, “jon.”  

he releases her hand and presses his fingers against her sex, one of them sliding into her.  she starts rubbing his cock again, and he adds another finger and this time, she hisses, shifting her hips ever so slightly so that he has a better angle.  he shifts too and then, an amused smile on his lips, pushes her back on the bed, hand arm up by her head, the other working her slit while she rubs his cock and rocks her hips into his hand, spreading her legs wider and wider.  he is panting slightly, and she raises her head up slightly to press her lips to his and as she does he presses a third finger into her and she groans again.

that is when she decides to move again.  she wants to see him, for him to see her, for them to move as one, to look him in the eyes for love comes in at the eyes, that she’d learned when she’d been too afraid to understand everything that was happening to her.  but she’d known that much and she wanted to see jon’s eyes, to watch him watch her.  so she pushes against him, rolls him onto his back, pulling herself off his fingers and straddling him again, holding his cock in her hand so that he watches as she takes him inside her, relishing in the way his lids flutter shut for just a moment, the way he gasps, the way he stills at the heat of her enveloping him.

“jon,” she whispers again after a moment and he opens his eyes again.  they are lidded and lazy now, and his eyes rake their way over her breasts to the soft down at the juncture of her legs, where her silver hair twines with his black.  he reaches a hand up and runs the back of his fingers over her side, then he finds her hands again and laces his fingers through hers and she begins to rock.

jon grunts underneath her, his hips rising to meet hers.  he doesn’t look away from her and there’s something in his eyes that takes her breath away.  he is not moving within her–he is moving with her.  they move together, slowly at first, a gentle dance that sends waves of joy through her.  he doesn’t look away, but as the dance gets faster and faster, he pulls her hands forward so that she is hovering over him, the tips of her breasts rubbing against the hair on his chest, and he kisses her hard as hie presses into her and she presses back against him, a moan rising to her lips even as warmth begins to build between her legs.

“jon,” she finds herself gasping again, “jon, jon,  _jon_ ,” and it becomes a prayer almost, a prayer for what though? for a future they fight for? for a future they share? or for the world to cease to exist beyond the two of them in her bed?  the rest can wait if it’s just the secret for now, just the two of them, just him, and her, him and her, him and–

the air is gone.  the warmth bursts forth.  it floods her, roaring in her ears like the distant cry of dragons, her heart hammering in her chest, her breath ragged as his name falls from her lips one last time.  she shakes slightly as she lets her chest sink down to rest on his, buries her head into his neck and kisses him, her cunt still throbbing as she continues to rock into him, her flesh sensitive but gods she doesn’t want it to end, not just yet, not just yet.

it does though.  the tremors fade, and her flesh is so tender, so sensitive, but she doesn’t pull away just yet.  she continues to rock her hips against his, her lips at his neck, her hands holding onto his tightly until with a choked, “dany,” his warmth fills her, and the world is truly still.

he is breathing heavily and when she lifts her head to look at him his eyes are closed now.  she presses her lips to his and he smiles into them and he releases her hands to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close to him while his heart beats, so very alive in his chest.

there is a bruise blooming on his neck from where she’d kissed it a little too fervently.  

it will be there in the morning, for everyone to see unless he’s mindful.  and he will be mindful, she’s sure.  she’s sure because this, for now, is still a secret.  they are, for now, the only ones who know.


	12. and asha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for kingsnovv

theon had always used to joke that showers were dangerous.  “because there’s always the dangers of shower sex.  they always make shower sex sound so appealing, but honestly it seems quite dangerous.”  he’d winked as though jon had known what that was supposed to mean.  jon–virgin that he’d been–had had no bleeding clue what he’d meant.

jon’s not used to beaches, and he’s not used to the apparent norm of showering after swimming for hours on end in the ocean to get the sand and salt off your body.  regular outdoor showers with wooden walls and spigots with bad water pressure.  jon  _certainly_ wasn’t prepared for the sounds coming out of the stall next to his.

dany and asha had been playing around.  they all had been–a little too much beer, and sun, and sunglasses that meant you could look wherever you wanted without anyone following your eyes.  dany and asha had spent most of the afternoon flirting, and talking about how men tended not to understand things half so well as they thought and snickering loudly when jon got offended at being included in that category.  

and now…now they were making sounds.  he saw from under the stall that bikini tops were on the ground, and he heard what could only be described as a very wet kiss and a sigh and…fucking theon greyjoy calling this dangerous.  he turned off the water, convinced he was clean enough and knowing if he stayed out here much longer…

“come join us, jon,” dany calls.

“we don’t bite…hard.”

dangerous indeed.


	13. halloween

“you didn’t dress up,” jon says even before she gets in the car and dany freezes.

“dress up?”  dany looks down.  she looks nice, she thinks.  she’s wearing a new dress that she’d gotten on sale when she had taken missandei shopping for interview clothes the week before, and had spent the past hour getting her hair in order.  it’s the first time she’s meeting jon’s brother robb, who he never shuts up about.   _it’s a party,_ jon had told her over text two days ago.   _if you don’t have other halloween plans._

“it’s halloween,” jon replies. and it all falls into place.  of course he’d meant a halloween party, not a regular one.  of course he had.

“you’re not dressed up,” dany points out.

“i am,” jon says and he pushes his long dark hair out of his face and she can see a lightning scar painted there.  he pulls a pair of fake round glasses from the dashboard of his car and pops them on his face.  

“cute,” dany says as she gets in the car.

“subtle, really.  especially after they started getting the actors to wear normal clothes in the movie,” he says and his face changes.  “you can’t go to robb and theon’s party not dressed up as anything.”

“i don’t own any costumes, so it’s gonna have to happen,” dany shrugs, pulling on the seat buckle.  

jon looks at her, half astounded.  “you don’t own any halloween costumes?  what are you, scrooge?”

“that’s christmas,” dany says dully, crossing her arms over her chest and looking out the window.  she waits for jon to turn the key in the ignition, but he doesn’t.  

“didn’t mean to tease,” he says at last.  “halloween’s a thing in my family.  like a real thing.”  she remembers.  she’s heard his story about dressing up as a ghost and covering himself in flour to freak out his younger siblings.

“i never celebrated growing up,” dany replies quietly.  “viserys never took me trick-or-treating or anything.  it’s just another day.”  she shrugs.

“is this gonna be your first halloween party?” jon asks her.

she looks at him.  his face is gentle now.  she nods.

“right,” he says.  “well…” he considers.  “i guess your look could be emma frost-ish if you wanted.”  he gives her a one over and she sees the way his eyes drink her in.  “but that’s only if you want.”

“emma frost…she’s one of magneto’s right?” dany’s already pulling out her phone to google it.  when the picture loads, she smiles and looks at him.  “if you can wait five minutes, i have an idea,” and jon nods and she’s out of the car again.  

five minutes was a bit of an underestimation, but it’s worth it.  gone is the demure blue dress she’d picked up at anthro and on with the small silver sheath she’d worn to her company’s holiday party the year before when she’d still been fucking daario and wanted him to never take his eyes off her.  she covers her eyes with silver eyeshadow and puts deep red on her lips.  then, with a sigh, she loosens the braids she’d spent so much time on so that the crimped hair falls in waves from behind a high silver headband.  but the time is worth it when she comes back out of the house and sees jon’s face as she marches towards his car and gets in again.  

“jesus,” he mutters, and she smiles at him and leans over the gearshift to kiss him.

“merlin,” she corrects.  “if you’re going to be harry potter, at least get the swears right.”


	14. the dragons are kids part i

she’s never been allowed to be irresponsible.  not ever.  it comes from being a mother, from being the only person responsible for her children, from every single piece that has fallen into place over the course of her life.

and when irri and jhiqui are out celebrating their anniversary two nights before the triplets are supposed to start first grade, dany calls missandei and begs her for babysitting and signs herself up to be the designated driver for the night.

she’s not the irresponsible one.  she’s the momfriend, and irri and jhiqui get very drunk and start shouting obsceneties at the rugby match that they are watching while dany keeps an eye on her phone.  the triplets like missandei, and god knows missandei has gained the experience necessary to handle their shenanigans over the course of the years, but that doesn’t mean she’s not half expecting the house to explode because drogon is a little too fond of just…poking things to see how they work.

there’s a group of rather rowdy men at the table next to them, all wearing black shirts and screaming at the television every time their team does well.  it doesn’t take long before jhiqui starts drunkenly haranguing them and their designated driver has to intercede because the one who’s built like a giant ox is all red-faced and trying to get into jhiqui’s grill.

“you mind yours and i’ll mind mine?” he asks her with a slight smile.  he’s got dark hair and grey eyes and she’s quite sure he’s given her a once over several times over the course of the evening.  he’s quite attractive, a thought that makes daenerys laugh to herself.  she’s in absolutely no place to even begin pursuing some guy at a sports bar.  he’d probably go running for the hills if he knew she had triplets.

which is, of course, how she ends up in the bathroom with him as the night wears on, her legs wrapped around his hips and him moaning into her neck as he presses into her.  she’s never allowed to be irresponsible, and he was right there, and she wanted him and he wanted her and she’d never picked anyone up in a bar before so why the hell not? it wasn’t like he was going to ever see her again.  it’s about the adrenaline rush, as she’s sure that everyone else in the bar–shouting as they are over rugby–would understand.

he slips her his number when they emerge, her hair disheveled and his face flushed.  she puts it in her wallet and is quite sure she’ll never call him.

* * *

the school is a nice one, and the wall decorations are lovely.  per instructions from the homeroom teacher, daenerys has brought a photograph in of each of her triplets, all of them grinning and looking perfectly angelic at her camera.  later today, she imagines, she’ll see them stapled to the wall under their names.  she hopes that first grade is better than kindergarten, that drogon hasn’t made his teacher cry and that viserion doesn’t hide too well on the play-ground during hide and seek such that the principle doesn’t have to call her and let her know that they’ve lost her son.  

she shakes the hand of the head teacher–an aging man named jeor mormont, who, she is shocked to learn, is jorah’s father.  knowing jorah’s relationship with his father, she doesn’t tell him that she’s very fond of his son, and that he’s a good friend, and smiles when jeor waves his hand to introduce the assistant teacher to her.

except he doesn’t have to, because “ _my name’s jon_ ,” he’d said over the sounds of groans as the black-shirted team had lost possession two nights before.  he looks wholly startled to see her there, and moreso that she’s got three kids in tow.

“your…nephews and niece?” he asks slowly.

“my children,” she says and watches as he does the mental math to try and work out how  _young_  she’d been when she’d had them.  she lets him.  she’s used to people doing that by now.  it will follow her wherever she goes, she’s sure, until she’s old and grey and her children are in their middle age.  

“oh,” he says and he smiles at them, crouching down so he’s at an eye level.  “what are your names?”

rhaegal, ever the sweetheart, introduces her brothers excitedly and jon waves them towards the rug in the center of the room where the other first graders are already sitting.  jeor mormont is greeting the next parent and it’s just the two of them, now.

“uh,” he begins, but dany cuts him off, business like.  “keep an eye on drogon.  he’s going to be your troublemaker.  viserion’s the one who’s going to cry most when he misses me, and rhaegal will do what she can to prove that she doesn’t need either of her brothers, but the second one of them’s upset she’ll bite whoever’s causing it.  we’re working on the biting,” dany adds.

“right,” jon says.  “thanks so much.  and–”

dany shrugs.  “it was fun.  it was one night.”

“yeah,” jon says.  “one night.”  he holds out a hand and she shakes it.  

and that should be that.

* * *

except that it isn’t.

except that every day when she comes to pick them up, there he is, smiling.  he’s got such a lovely smile, and when the three kids are in the back seat, babbling away about their day at school, invariably there are stories about him.  “jon is funny,” rhaegal says.  “he always knows what to say to make us laugh.”

“he helped me color my dragon,” viserion says.  “look mommy,” and he hands the paper to her even though she’s drying.

drogon, too cool for school, doesn’t say anything, but she learns quickly that of all of them, he’s the one most eager to impress jon.  

“you’re a useful tactic,” she tells him while they’re getting their things one day.  “‘eat your greens or i’m telling jon,’ and they eat them right up.”

jon laughs.  “goes both ways,” he adds.  “they don’t want me to send notes home about misbehavior.”  dany smiles knowingly.  

“i’m a bit of a dragon mom,” she tells him.  “they know the limits, and they know what happens with misbehavior.  not that that stops them, but i’m glad to hear it’s helpful in the classroom.”

“i think you should date jon,” rhaegal tells her in the car.  “then he can be our new dad.”

she almost puts her foot down too hard on the brake.  if there’s one thing she’ll  _never_  tell her children, not even on her deathbed, it’s that she’d fucked their favorite teacher in the bathroom of a bar.  

“that’s not how it works,” drogon snaps at rhaegal.  “people don’t always marry people they date.  look at missandei.  she’s gone on tons of dates but hasn’t gotten married.”

rhaegal, annoyed at being wrong, mumbles, “yeah but then he’d be our new dad.”

* * *

she has no idea how she’ll tell them–or if she ever will.  they haven’t gotten that far yet.  one night at a bar turns into a second night in the front seat of his car.  she feels like the high schooler when she straddles him and rides him as he kisses her neck, her breasts behind a line of trees by a lake.  he feels so good against her skin, and he makes her laugh and he likes her kids and they like him and she knows–she really knows–that fucking him could cost him his job, but she doesn’t care because he doesn’t seem to care.

they can be discreet, right?  they can make this work, right?  she wants to believe it, has to believe it–not that she knows what  _it_  is.  they haven’t talked about that.  she won’t let them talk about it so long as he’s teaching her kids. because running around and fucking on the sly is something she can absolutely do, but if rhaegal keeps saying “but then he’d be our new dad,” that’s a whole different thing.

so they don’t talk about it.  it turns into a third time–again at a bar this time while she’s out with irri and jhiqui because rugby season turned into basketball season, and it turns into a fourth time in his apartment because honestly, why not just fucking commit to fucking and beds are comfortable, and turns into a fifth time before he says, between kisses, “i’m falling in love with you.”

“be careful,” she replies, “i may too–and then you’ll be stuck with my triplets for the rest of your life.”

he rolls them over so that she’s hovering over him now, and smiles up at her, and pulls her down to kiss him again.


	15. the dragons are kids part ii

mother of  _monsters_.

there is paint all over her kitchen and, judging from the look of chagrin on rhaegal’s face, it is probably drogon’s fault.  “we didn’t mean to, mama,” her daughter says.

“please say they are water colors,” she says looking between rhaegal and missandei, who has come back into the room with drogon and viserion.  both of them are in fresh clothes, but she sees a bit of paint on viserion’s cheek just near his ear.

missandei grimaces, and daenerys takes a deep breath.  “i don’t have time for this,” she mutters angrily, going to the sink and soaping up a sponge to try and get the paint off the cushions of the kitchen chairs.  “i really don’t have time for this.”

“we’re sorry mama,” viserion says, pelting towards her.  “we didn’t mean to make a mess.  we just wanted it to be good.”  there are tears in his eyes.  of her children, he likes it least when she is angry and daenerys takes a deep breath.

“what did you want to be good?” she asks, resting a hand on his head.

“it’s jon’s birthday this weekend.  we wanted to make a card.”

oh.  dany checks her phone, then opens her text chain with the man in question.   _i’m going to be late.  the kids made a mess.  i’ll make it worth your while xx_

“well,” she says slowly, carefully–she doesn’t want to give anything away.  she really doesn’t.  they’ve gotten through almost the entire school year without  _anyone_  knowing at all.  

well.

that’s not exactly true.  missandei knows.  she had to tell missandei.  she couldn’t  _not_  tell missandei.  and jon told his friend sam, who had promptly told most of his friends because they needed to crow about goody-two-shoes-jon-snow hooking up with a parent.  but no one at the school knows and, more importantly, not one of her triplets knows.  and soon it will be summer break, and jon won’t be in charge of her children from eight to two on weekdays and they can just live without fear of what it would mean for his job for a change.  

so she really can’t let anything onto viserion.  because if he’s the one who likes least when she is angry, he is also the one who sometimes blabbers a little too much in that childish “i didn’t know i wasn’t supposed to say that” way.

“do you want to see it mama?” rhaegal asks, now that it’s clear that dany’s controlling her anger and they likely won’t end up in too much trouble.  “look!” she waves the card at her and dany looks at it.  it’s stick figures, for the most part–jon, taller with dark hair, jeor, older with outlined white hair, and the three kids.  there’s even a white dog, because, as dany knows, jon talks about his dog all the time at school.  

“how did this little card make such a big mess?” she asks rhaegal, amused.

“we had a few false starts,” missandei cuts in.  “drogon was over eager.”

“i wasn’t over eager,” drogon insists, hands on his little hips.  “it had to be  _perfect_.”  dany looks at the card again.   _perfect,_ she thinks, and smiles, imagining jon’s face when he sees it.

her phone buzzes on the counter and she picks it up.

_j: xx or xxx?_

* * *

much later, when she’s curled up against jon’s chest, listening to the sound of his beating heart, her mind drifts back to the birthday card, to the way her kids’ eyes shine at the mention of jon’s name, of the fact that he’s listed in her phone as a non-descript “j” so that that a poorly timed text will never give them away.  

at this point, they have a routine.  tonight had been out of the ordinary–a birthday celebration will warrant a break from routine–and their dinner had not been just the two of them, but rather jon and most of his friends in a state of innebriation appropriate for a birthday party.  she’d driven him home, had fucked his brains out, and now she was listening to the gentle thumping of his heart, feeling the soft warmth of his breath against her hair.  

she hears ghost snuffling at the door.  they’d learned months before that the dog would jump onto the bed while they were fucking and just lie down next to them, which was enough to make them laugh, but was quite the mood killer, so they’d taken to shutting him out of jon’s room until they were done. she makes to sit up, but jon pulls her back down.  “stay,” he whispers.

“i was getting the dog,” she replies.

“i know, but if you get ghost, it’ll be twenty minutes before you have to leave.  stay a little while longer.”

“i do have to get back to the kids,” she tells him, but she lies back down against his chest.  he’s right.  the sooner she lets ghost in, the sooner she has to go.  and missandei  _had_  said that she’d be willing to stay as late as dany needed, so long as she wasn’t forced to lie to the kids about where their mother was and why she was still there the next day.

“i know,” jon sighs.  she shifts, turning her head up to face him.  his eyes are open and he’s looking at her.  “school ends in three weeks.  it seems so far away.”

“yeah,” she whispers.  “too far.”  she kisses him.  his lips are tangy with the taste of her, but in a way she’s used to after months of fucking him on the sly.  

“have you…” he pauses and clears his throat.  “have you thought about…telling them?”

dany breathes slowly.  she closes her eyes.  

they’ve talked about her kids.  how could they not?  jon likes them, and they’re her life.  but dany’s always been careful.  apart from the occasional joke that they’d be his for the rest of his life unless he was careful, she hasn’t brought it up at all.  she hasn’t told him how drogon gets moody when people ask him about his dad, she doesn’t tell him how viserion had made up a father for himself during preschool just to fit in with some of the other kids, she doesn’t tell him how rhaegal had asked for a father for christmas this past year.

“i have no idea,” dany says carefully.  “it’s….it’s hard.  depending on how we do it they’ll…” she searches his eyes.  “look, they’ll start expecting us to get married and fast.  they won’t understand why we won’t.  and i just…i don’t know how to manage that expectation.”   _and manage my own._

jon rubs his nose against her forehead and tightens his arms around her.  “so assuming there’s no way to manage the expectation–that they’re little heads are going to spin out of control with excitement no matter what and that it’s gonna get away from us fast, how do we tell them?”

“and…and i guess….” dany grimaces.  “i guess what do we want us to be in the long run?”  her throat is dry.  “because i’m not saying we have to get married right away or anything, but like…do we want to get married at some point?  do you want to be married or are you imagining yourself–”

“yeah,” he says simply.  “married.  kids.  the whole thing.  i didn’t think i’d want that ever when i was a kid, but here we are and here i am and yeah.  i want to get married.”  he looks at her.  “do you?”

“to the right guy,” she says.  daario had  _not_  been the right guy for it.  she’d enjoyed him tremendously, but she didn’t trust him with her kids and couldn’t fathom living with him.  jon though…

“and am i the right guy?” jon asks.

 _doesn’t he know?_   she kisses him.  she kisses him and clings to him and the world could be ending outside, the walls of his apartment could be falling and she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care.

* * *

the doorbell rings and dany smiles as she zips up her dress.  “that’s probably missandei!” she calls from her bedroom.  “can someone get the door?”

she hears scampering and the sound of the door opening, then drogon, saying very loudly “jon!”

she grins.  she doesn’t hear jon’s reply, but she does hear rhaegal’s squeal of delight as she goes to the front door too.  “why are you here?” her daughter asks.

dany slips her feet into her shoes then goes to the staircase.  jon’s crouched down in front of them.  he looks nice–he always looks nice–his hair freshly cut and he’s wearing a polo shirt that she’d helped him pick out.  

as she appears on the stairs, all of them look at her and she sees drogon’s eyes widened, viserion’s jaw dropped, and rhaegal’s lifted her hands to her mouth as though she doesn’t want to say anything at all lest she ruin all the thoughts in her head.

“mom,” drogon says, always the bravest of her children, “jon says he’s here to take you out to dinner.”

dany smiles and behind jon, she sees missandei’s car pull into the driveway.  “yes,” she says.  “you all like him so much i thought that i’d get dinner with him and see what all the fuss is about.”

viserion let out a squeal and rhaegal began bouncing up and down.  drogon looked between his mom and jon, and slowly, a smile crept across his face.  

“hi missandei,” jon grins as missandei reaches the porch next to him.  she grins at him.  

“have fun at dinner,” missandei says without missing a beat.  “will you be back by the time the kids are asleep?”

“maybe,” daenerys says.  “maybe not.”

missandei nods, and dany bends down to kiss each of the triplets on the top of their heads.  “be good,” she tells them.  

she feels jon’s hand on the small of her back as they walk down the pathway to his car and when she glances over her shoulder, she sees three sets of eyes peering avidly out the window.

she smiles at them before getting into the car next to jon.

* * *

_missandei: drogon is trying to be all cool, but he keeps asking me whether i know if you think jon is cool or not._

_missandei: rhaegal is asking how long it takes before people get married.  she wants an exact number of dates.  and wants to know what happens if people don’t go on that many dates and what happens when people go on too many?  she’s got a head for business this one._

_missandei: viserion is drawing another card for jon._

_missandei: they’re really excited about this._

that night, when jon pulls up in front of her house, when ordinarily she’d kiss him goodbye, possibly for minutes on end, she glances at her phone.  it’s late enough that they’d be asleep.  and her heart is in her throat when she raises an eyebrow and says, “want to come in?”


	16. hair

he wakes to daenerys’ fingers in his hair, and his eyes flutter open.

she is wrapped in that lion skin of hers, the white one that she said had been a gift from her first husband.  she wore it when she wished to be strong, he’d noticed, or, simply, when she wished to be warm.  at the moment, he suspected the latter, because her nakedness was hidden from him.

jon did not feel the cold as daenerys did.  he could not feel heat the way she did either.  but the gentle movement of her fingers through his hair–that he could feel.  he took a deep breath, twisted his head up to look at her, and smiled.

“don’t move,” she told him, bending to kiss his forehead.

“as you command,” he teased.  part of him wished to close his eyes again.  it had been so long since he’d just…lied there, quietly.  usually when he woke, he was immediately on his feet, dressing, going somewhere, answering someone, serving those who had crowned him.  he’d not known laziness since his boyhood, since before he’d gone to the watch, and so if daenerys was commanding him not to move, it seemed like an opportunity to just lie there, peacefully, while she ran her fingers through his hair.

but he found that he did not wish to take his eyes off her.

she was beautiful, this silver queen.  he had noticed that first–as all men did, he imagined.  but it wasn’t her beauty that bewitched him at this moment, it was the crease in her brow, the look of concentration as her fingers wove through his hair.

“is it falling out?” he asked her.

“what?”

“my hair?  what has you so preoccupied?”

dany’s lips pulled into an amused smile.  “your hair is so soft,” she told him.  “and long.”

“i’m glad it meets with your approval,” he teased.  “i quite like your hair as well.”  he made to sit up, to kiss her, but she pushed him back down.  

“i told you not to move.  i’m braiding it.”

jon blinked up at her.  

daenerys wore her hair in many intricate braids.  he’d undone them when they’d taken each other to bed; he’d seen her play with her own hair absentmindedly, pulling silver into knots easily with small fingers; he’d seen her handmaids weaving her hair in intricate patterns that had always astounded him.  

his hair was long enough to braid, he supposed, but for daenerys to braid?  and what sorts of braids was she putting there?

“don’t look so horrified,” daenerys laughed, bending to kiss him again.  “i just wanted to do it.  that knot you keep it in is so simple–”

“useful,” jon corrected.  

“and i wanted to see if it would hold a braid.”

jon looked up at her again.  there was such laughter in her eyes.  she rarely had laughter there.  he’d seen anger, sadness, fear, hate, longing, love, but laughter?

he heaved a sigh.

“i suppose we’d be matching, then.”

that made her chuckle again and gods but her eyes were so beautiful when they danced with laughter like that.  

“wouldn’t it be better if i sat up at least?  that way you’ll be able to get my whole head.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have written some Jon x Daenerys drabbles that exist in my [November Drabble Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/860076). Since I'm not going to post them twice, here is a directory if you're interested.
> 
>   * [snow? not stark?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8443999/chapters/19778698)
> 



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